The stylish Tawla in San Francisco is much more than a restaurant. It’s an immersive cultural experience, bringing the authentic flavors and feel of the Eastern Mediterranean to Bay Area diners. Owner and first-time restaurateur Azhar Hashem hails from Jordan and is an engineer who previously worked in marketing at Google. Here, she discusses how her approach to building a successful business involves the intersection of creativity and critical thinking.

Stay Disciplined to Stay True to Your Vision.

“I got into the food business not because of a specific passion for restaurants, per se, but more for a restaurant being the vehicle for something a little bigger that I was hoping to do. Specifically, it was around the region the food is from and how people understand it or perceive it. And it’s a misunderstood region, a very loaded region. A lot of people associate it with and hear about it through a political lens. I started to think about this in terms of, ‘Is there a way that I can get people here in the United States to look at that region through a new lens, a lens that is more human and humanizing?’

There is nothing more humanizing than food, so I saw a restaurant as a great way to present that experience in a holistic way. Tied into that is a great attachment to the original vision and what I was trying to get out of that because the goal is just so much bigger than the restaurant itself. To accomplish it all, I had to be very disciplined to make sure I stayed true to the vision. In many ways, the restaurant became the vehicle for how we would present this, so we can tell this story and present this experience that is unique that you don’t really see in the U.S. All the variables that I could play with were other variables that were not the concept.”

Choose Your Partners Carefully and Give Relationships Time to Develop.

“When I was setting out to do this, I had few contingencies in place, and if they were to happen, then I would consider them a sign to move forward. One was to find a gifted chef who is very talented and has amazing experience, who was excited and malleable around doing a deep dive into a new cuisine. I’m an engineer by training, and I come from a very technical critical training, so I had to find somebody that was talented and had a great craft but could also meet me at that level and have these deep, critical-thinking type of conversations.

It’s incredible that I could find that in Joseph Magidow (Locanda Osteria & Bar). He was maybe the fourth person that I interviewed, and I knew I was done. He was really excited about doing something he’d never done before, loved the challenge, and was not intimidated by going into something that was new to him. He could connect brand-new things to what he’d done previously. It helped that he spent a year with my mom. She’s not a chef, but she is a spectacular cook, and he got a real feel for it and developed a great intuition working with her. Every day, I believe he is my biggest blessing, and the biggest joy working on this project has been collaborating with him. He’s open-minded. Brilliant. No ego. And I’ve learned so much from him. It’s amazing that I came across Joseph because I put an ad out there on Craig’s List and I found this guy.”

Use Data in Conjunction with Instinct to Iterate (and Reiterate).

“For the last eight years, I worked in marketing for Google and I really gravitated toward that sweet spot between creative and engineering – the type of creative that is grounded in analytics and critical thinking. And the whole idea of that is that the creative and the vision act as the inspiration for what we do, but the actual rigor and quant aspect of it is what makes sure it pushes toward excellence. That’s the tactic we take here at Tawla. [Read more…]

The fall is the biggest season, by far, for opening a restaurant — just look at the countless guides that religiously go up starting in late August. But just because fall boasts the greatest number of new eateries, does that really mean it is the best season to open a restaurant?

This week, with the help of a few top restaurateurs and chefs, we are considering all four seasons, weighing the pros and cons of opening during each of them, and what restaurants work for which seasons.

FALL

Pros:

* Fall usually gets the most media buzz out of any other season, so you are more likely to be considered for a roundup or a larger feature.

* Who doesn’t love fall weather? It’s a season where people are out and about and looking to enjoy the city scenery.

*Patrick Lee, the owner of Grafton Group, says that timing your restaurant right before the holiday craze, in early November, is a great way to grab people’s attention before the season gets very busy.

Cons:

* Since so many restaurants open in the fall, there is tons of competition, and it is harder to stand out.

* Companies are usually the busiest during the fall months, so people have less time to go out and try new places.

WINTER

Pros:

* Winter allows you to capitalize on big-ticket dining holidays like Christmas and New Years’ Eve to give your spot an early revenue (and publicity) boost.

* If your space has cozier, more intimate vibes, it can become a great go-to during chilly weather.

* If you think that your restaurant might need some time to find its footing, Lee advises, “The winter months can be used to smooth out any rough edges before significantly adding to the stress of the restaurant with the addition of outdoor seating in the spring.”

Cons:

* If you are in a cold weather spot, people may not want to venture out to eat — in fact, many restaurants see an acute decline in sales during the winter months.

* Opening right at the beginning of the year can be difficult, as so many people opt to spend January getting in shape or going on a restrictive diet after the holiday season.

Location is, without a doubt, one of the most important considerations when opening a restaurant. As a restaurateur, it’s easy to want to go for the more robust dining neighborhoods or downtown hot spots — but why not think outside of the city lines? We’re talking about the suburbs. Once the site of many a food and dining desert, the suburbs are becoming one of the most strategic spots to open a restaurant, with the promise of lower rent, less red tape, and an instant crowd of regulars.

Traditional wisdom says to open up in a city simply because the population is higher there. But according to Aaron Robins, chef of SOCA and Boneyard Bistro in Sherman Oaks, California, “The suburbs mimic the city in that there are dense pockets.” This means that while there are fewer people, those individuals tend to form concentrated communities within their respective neighborhoods. This translates to restaurateurs having a manageable but very captive audience to cater to. On top of that, because there are fewer restaurants, “You usually don’t have the same competition level,” he adds.

And yes, rent is often cheaper, but most successful restaurateurs in the suburbs will tell you that the biggest benefit of opening up outside the city is the community feel in each neighborhood — and the loyal regulars that come with it. Robins, for example, has been in Sherman Oaks for 12 years and says that he has customers who will eat at SOCA five nights a week. Adds David DiBari, chef of The Cookery in Westchester, New York, and The Parlor in Dobbs Ferry, New York, “Together with our customers, our employees, and our farms, it just feels a lot more tight and intimate.”

Restaurants in the suburbs become “one of the centers of the community,” according to Paul Virant, the chef-owner of Vie in Western Springs, Ilinois. “People feel like it is their restaurant — it’s the place where people always invite their friends from the city. People like having their own hangout spot.”

There is also a lot less potential bureaucracy to have to contend with. Whereas in cities there is a constant barrage of theoretical restaurants filing applications with the government, “Up in the suburbs, the mentality with the local officials is more like, ‘We don’t want businesses to die because we are so strict; we want them to flourish,’” DiBari says. “So the restaurants get better treatment because there is this feeling like we are all in this together.”

Suburban crowds are also more interested than they have been in the past in boundary-pushing restaurants — they’re no longer limited to generic burger and salad fare. Robins points to groundbreaking chefs like Ludo Lefebvre opening up nearby as evidence of the population’s evolving dining habits. “The Valley has come so far in wanting and accepting higher-quality restaurants,” he says. “We are getting some real players.”

It’s also interesting to note that what people define as a city is a fluid entity. In Los Angeles, for example, neighborhoods like Silver Lake and Echo Park used to be considered suburbs — now they are bustling neighborhoods with major restaurant scenes that are very much seen as part of the heartbeat of the city, Robins says. This means opening up outside of the city is, more often than not, a strong bet for the future, and a chance to get into a soon-to-be-bustling dining neighborhood at the ground level.

Of course, there are certain challenges to consider. DiBari points out that finding employees can be more difficult in the suburbs as opposed to urban areas, as qualified people in the city are less willing to reverse commute, and the suburbs themselves can often have a limited talent pool. He adds, too, that weather has a bigger effect on customers choosing to dine out — particularly those driving in from the city after work. One of the biggest challenges at Vie, according to Virant, is weeknight traffic: Because a lot of people who live in the suburbs are families, it’s harder to convince them to dine out early in the week.

Still, if you’re looking for that sweet spot of an interested, perpetually underserved dining population, the suburbs are a solid bet. As Robins says, “these neighborhoods deserve great restaurants, too.”

Here are some of the top tips for opening a restaurant in the suburbs. [Read more…]

D.C. has been in the spotlight for a number of reasons in the past year, the most nonpartisan of them all being the growing restaurant scene. Given that it’s the capital of our nation, the city has long been a center for diverse, international, and cultured clientele — but only recently have restaurateurs begun to take notice of this captive audience, with big-name chefs like David Chang and Daniel Boulud opening concepts in the heart of the city, and other restaurants, like Bombay Club and Doi Moi, setting new standards for the ambitiousness and creativity of the dining scene. Just this past year, in fact, the Michelin Guide launched its first ever D.C. edition, a surefire indication that the city is a bonafide culinary destination.

“D.C. is the capital of the world, so people are coming here no matter what,” says Ashok Bajaj, a D.C. restaurateur whose portfolio includes Bombay Club and Rasika (a favorite of former President Obama’s), among others. “It’s not New York or San Francisco in terms of the number of restaurants, but it gets the same amount of traffic because you’ve got all the culture, museums, politics, and the diplomatic visits. It’s an exciting place to be as a chef.”

As a center of politics and deal making, D.C. is also always in need of restaurant locales for doing business, and there’s no shortage of customers who are willing to pony up for a great meal. Another benefit of having a restaurant in the center point of government: you are getting a brand-new audience every two years, thanks to elections, so there are plenty of opportunities to make an impression on a fresh, eager dining clientele.

Also, even though D.C. is the place where laws are passed, regulations that affect restaurateurs are significantly more lax than in other cities. Take alcohol laws, for example — only in D.C. can restaurants buy directly from vineyards or distilleries and not have to go through a wholesaler, who may not have their favorite varieties. “We call it the wild west of wine,” Morgan Fausett, director of operations for the Fat Baby restaurant group in DC (encompassing Proof, Estadio, Doi Moi, and 2 Birds 1 Stone), says. “It really opens up a whole array of opportunities for businesses.”

The Challenges

The biggest downside of the dynamic nature of the city? Maintaining regulars. Fausett says that you might have a congresswoman frequenting your spot for a year or two, and then she will rotate out of D.C., and you’ve instantly lost a regular. Even for a restaurant like Proof, which has been around for about a decade, she says the struggle is there.

It’s also a particularly tough city for first time restaurateurs. According to Celia Laurent, co-owner of Kinship and Metier, D.C. landlords tend to be significantly more biased toward longstanding chains, especially in the more tourist-y areas around the White House, and they are less willing to take a risk on a non-corporate concept. This can make it tough for new, ambitious spots to lay down roots in the city.

Of course, the biggest complaint among restaurateurs: the sheer number of road blockages and shutdowns due to noisy motorcades and political events. While these are usually brief and not super disruptive to the area, it is a very D.C.-specific annoyance.

Tips for Success

Go for the suburbs. Central D.C. can be tempting, as that’s where all the wealthy politicians are wont to congregate for lunches and dinners, but Laurent says the suburbs are the way to go. “There are a lot of new neighborhoods and residential populations that are in desperate need of new restaurants,” she says. Plus, she adds, people in the city are more willing to travel for a restaurant than they used to be, so you’re not going to be exclusively reliant on local residents. [Read more…]

New Orleans is a pretty one-of-a-kind place to dine out. It’s the only American city to have its own cuisine (Cajun, Creole) and, unlike a lot of popular dining locales, restaurants have been built into the fabric of NOLA society since the city’s inception.

“People have always come to New Orleans to eat,” says Shannon Derkacht of Sylvain. “It’s a way of life here for locals to eat out. There is this built-in group of food enthusiasts.” She adds that because of this, while cities like New York are defined by the finance industry and Los Angeles is defined by the film industry, New Orleans has long been defined by its food business—in fact, though this is much disputed, New Orleans claims to be home to the first restaurant in America, Antoine’s.

The centrality of the food industry is also evident in the fact that when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2009, restaurants were some of the first businesses to bounce back—and since then, the number of places to eat in the city has grown exponentially. In the long run, according to Kelly Fields, chef/partner of Willa Jean, Katrina made the industry stronger, better, and more innovative, and brought chefs closer together.

“The community here in New Orleans is one that I have not experienced in any other city in America,” she says. “We are all in it together. If one place succeeds, we all succeed. We’ve been to hell and back because of Katrina, and we’re all still taking one step in front of the other to make our dreams come true.”

Because food permeates every aspect of New Orleans life, John Michael Rowland, General Manager at Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar, says that working in the restaurant industry really does feel like you are servicing the very heart of the culture. “People visit for the food and the culture that surrounds food,” he says. “Everywhere you go—whether it’s a restaurant or even a music festival, people are always talking about food.” [Read more…]